Daisy
dark shadow crossing her face, very different from its own brown
duskiness.
"He don't have a light hand, Mass' Ed'ards," went on Theresa, "and he
got a sharp, new whip. De second stripe--Pete, he tell me this
evenin'--and it war wet; and it war wet enough before he got through.
He war mad, I reckon; certain, Mass' Ed'ards, he war mad."
"_Wet?_" said I.
"Laws, Miss Daisy," said Margaret, "'tain't nothin'. Them whips, they
draws the blood easy. Darry, he don't mind."
I have a recollection of the girl's terrified face, but I heard nothing
more. Such a deadly sickness came over me that for a minute I must have
been near fainting; happily it took another turn amid the various
confused feelings which oppressed me, and I burst into tears. My eyes had
not been wet through all the hours of the evening and night; my heartache
had been dry. I think I was never very easy to move to tears, even as a
child. But now, well for me, perhaps, some element of the pain I was
suffering found the unguarded point--or broke up the guard. I wept as I
have done very few times in my life. I had thrown myself into Mammy
Theresa's lap, in the weakness which could not support itself, and in an
abandonment of grief which was careless of all the outside world; and
there I lay, clasped in her arms and sobbing. Grief, horror, tender
sympathy, and utter helplessness, striving together; there was nothing
for me at that moment but the woman's refuge and the child's remedy of
weeping. But the weeping was so bitter, so violent, and so uncontrollable,
that the women were frightened. I believe they shut the doors, to keep
the sound of my sobs from reaching other ears; for when I recovered the
use of my senses I saw that they were closed.
The certain strange relief which tears do bring, they gave to me. I
cannot tell why. My pain was not changed, my helplessness was not done
away; yet at least I had washed my causes of sorrow in a flood of
heart drops, and cleansed them so somehow from any personal stain.
Rather I was perfectly exhausted. The women put me to bed, as soon as
I would let them; and Margaret whispered an earnest "Do, don't, Miss
Daisy, don't say nothin' about the prayer meetin'!" I shook my head; I
knew better than to say anything about it.
All the better not to betray them, and myself, I shut my eyes, and
tried to let my face grow quiet. I had succeeded, I believe, before my
Aunt Gary and Miss Pinshon came in. The two stood looking at me; my
aunt in some consternation, my governess reserving any expression of
what she thought. I fancied she did not trust my honesty. Another time
I might have made an effort to right myself in her opinion; but I was
past that and everything now. It was decided by my aunt that I had
better keep my bed as long as I felt like doing so.
So I lay there during the long hours of that day. I was glad to be
still, to keep out of the way in a corner, to hear little and see
nothing of what was going on; my own small world of thoughts was
enough to keep me busy. I grew utterly weary at last of thinking, and
gave it up, so far as I could; submitting passively, in a state of
pain, sometimes dull and sometimes acute, to what I had no power to
change or remedy. But my father _had_, I thought; and at those times
my longing was unspeakable to see him. I was very quiet all that day,
I believe, in spite of the rage of wishes and sorrows within me; but
it was not to be expected I should gain strength. On the contrary, I
think I grew feverish. If I could have laid down my troubles in
prayer! but at first, these troubles, I could not. The core and root
of them being my father's share in the rest. And I was not alone; and
I had a certain consciousness that if I allowed myself to go to my
little Bible for help, it would unbar my self-restraint, with its
sweet and keen words, and I should give way again before Margaret and
Theresa: and I did not wish that.
"What shall we do with her?" said my Aunt Gary when she came to me
towards the evening. "She looks like a mere shadow. I never saw such a
change in a child in four weeks--never!"
"Try a different regimen to-morrow, I think," said my governess, whose
lustrous black eyes looked at me sick, exactly as they looked at me
well.
"I shall send for the doctor, if she isn't better," said my aunt.
"She's feverish now."
"Keeping her bed all day," said Miss Pinshon.
"Do you think so?" said my aunt.
"I have no doubt of it. It is very weakening."
"Then we will let her get up to-morrow, and see how that will do."
They had been gone half an hour, when Preston stole in and came to the
side of my bed, between me and the firelight.
"Come, Daisy, let us be friends!" he said. And he was stooping to kiss
me; but I put out my hand to keep him back.
"Not till you have told Darry you are sorry," I said.
Preston was angry instantly, and stood upright.
"Ask pardon of a servant!" he said. "You would have the world upside
down directly."
I thought it was upside down already; but I was too weak and
downhearted to say so.
"Daisy, Daisy!" said Preston--"And there you lie, looking like a poor
little wood flower that has hardly strength to hold up its head; and
with about as much colour in your cheeks. Come, Daisy, kiss me, and
let us be friends."
"If you will do what is right," I said.
"I will--always," said Preston; "but this would be wrong, you know."
And he stooped again to kiss me. And again I would not suffer him.
"Daisy, you are absurd," said Preston, vibrating between pity and
anger, I think, as he looked at me. "Darry is a servant, and
accustomed to a servant's place. What hurt you so much did not hurt
him a bit. He knows where he belongs."
"You don't," said I.
"What?"
"Know anything about it." I remember I spoke very feebly. I had hardly
energy left to speak at all. My words must have come with a curious
contrast between the meaning and the manner.
"Know anything about what, Daisy? You are as oracular and as immovable
as one of Egypt's monuments; only they are very hard, and you are very
soft, my dear little Daisy!--and they are very brown, according to all
I have heard, and you are as white as a wind-flower. One can almost
see through you. What is it I don't know anything about?"
"I am so tired, Preston!"
"Yes; but what is it I don't know anything about?"
"Darry's place--and yours," I said.
"His place and mine! His place is a servant's, I take it, belonging to
Rudolf Randolph, of Magnolia. I am the unworthy representative of an
old Southern family, and a gentleman. What have you to say about
that?"
"He is a servant of the Lord of lords," I said; "and his Master loves
him. And He has a house of glory preparing for him, and a crown of
gold, and a white robe, such as the King's children wear. And he will
sit on a throne himself by and by. Preston, where will _you_ be?"
These words were said without the least heat of manner--almost
languidly; but they put Preston in a fume. I could not catch his
excitement in the least; but I saw it. He stood up again, hesitated,
opened his mouth to speak and shut it without speaking, turned and
walked away and came back to me. I did not wait for him then.
"You have offended one of the King's children," I said; "and the King
is offended."
"Daisy," said Preston, in a sort of suppressed fury, "one would think
you had turned Abolitionist; only you never heard of such a thing."
"What is it?" said I, shutting my eyes.
"It is just the meanest and most impudent shape a Northerner can take;
it is the lowest end of creation, an Abolitionist is; and a Yankee is
pretty much the same thing!"
"Dr. Sandford is a Yankee," I remarked.
"Did you get it from _him_?" Preston asked, fiercely.
"What?" said I, opening my eyes.
"Your nonsense. Has he taught you to turn Abolitionist?"
"I have not _turned_ at all," I said. "I wish you would. It is only
the people who are in the wrong that ought to turn."
"Daisy," said Preston, "you ought never to be away from Aunt Felicia
and my uncle. Nobody else can manage you. I don't know what you will
become or what you will do, before they get back."
I was silent; and Preston, I suppose, cooled down. He waited awhile,
and then again begged that I would kiss and be friends. "You see, I am
going away to-morrow morning, little Daisy."
"I wish you had gone two days ago," I said.
And my mind did not change, even when the morning came.
CHAPTER V.
IN THE KITCHEN.
I was ill for days. It was not due to one thing, doubtless, nor one
sorrow, but the whole together. My aunt sent to Baytown for the old
family physician. He came up and looked at me, and decided that I
ought to "play" as much as possible!
"She isn't a child that likes play," said my aunt.
"Find some play that she does like, then. Where are her father and
mother?"
"Just sailed for Europe, a few weeks ago."
"The best thing would be for her to sail after them," said the old
doctor. And he went.
"We shall have to let her do just as they did at Melbourne," said my
aunt.
"How was that?" said Miss Pinshon.
"Let her have just her own way."
"And what was that?"
"Oh, queer," said my aunt. "She is not like other children. But
anything is better than to have her mope to death."
"I shall try and not have her mope," said Miss Pinshon.
But she had little chance to adopt her reforming regimen for some
time. It was plain I was not fit for anything but to be let alone,
like a weak plant struggling for its existence. All you can do with it
is to put it in the sun; and my aunt and governess tacitly agreed upon
the same plan of treatment for me. Now, the only thing wanting was
sunshine; and it was long before that could be had. After a day or two
I left my bed, and crept about the house, and out of the house under
the great oaks, where the material sunshine was warm and bright
enough, and caught itself in the grey wreaths of moss that waved over
my head, and seemed to come bodily to woo me to life and cheer. It lay
in the carpet under my feet, it lingered in the leaves of the thick
oaks, it wantoned in the wind, as the long draperies of moss swung and
moved gently to and fro; but the very sunshine is cold where the ice
meets it; I could get no comfort. The thoughts that had so troubled me
the evening after my long talk with Preston were always present with
me; they went out and came in with me; I slept with them, and they met
me when I woke. The sight of the servants was wearying. I shunned
Darry and the stables. I had no heart for my pony. I would have liked
to get away from Magnolia. Yet, be I where I might, it would not alter
my father's position towards these seven hundred people. And towards
how many more? There were his estates in Virginia.
One of the first things I did, as soon as I could command my fingers
to do it, was to write to him. Not a remonstrance. I knew better than
to touch that. All I ventured, was to implore that the people who
desired it might be allowed to hold prayer-meetings whenever they
liked, and Mr. Edwards be forbidden to interfere. Also I complained
that the inside of the cabins were not comfortable; that they were
bare and empty. I pleaded for a little bettering of them. It was not a
long letter that I wrote. My sorrow I could not tell, and my love and
my longing were equally beyond the region of words. I fancy it would
have been thought by Miss Pinshon a very cold little epistle, but Miss
Pinshon did not see it. I wrote it with weak trembling fingers, and
closed it and sealed it and sent it myself. Then I sank into a
helpless, careless, listless state of body and mind, which was very
bad for me; and there was no physician who could minister to me. I
went wandering about, mostly out of doors, alone with myself and my